whats better to quench a sword in?

[steve sells]

lol thanks I needed a laugh

in case I forgot to mention it clearly NO, NO and did I say No ?

[ApprenticeMan]

Originally Posted by Brian Carlson

I wonder if there would be any benefit to quenching in a combination of oil and water? Since oil floats on top of water. Maybe you could combine the benefits of each.

NO. The oil on water thing is counter intuitive to how hardening works, you have to cool the steel fast at first to get past the pearlite nose on a TTT diagram, then cool it moderately slow to keep stress to a minimum. Most modern day quench oils like those from Houghton or the heat bath products lke AAA for deep hardening steels or Park#50 for shallow hardening steels do just that.

If you could somehow get water to float on oil you would have one of the most ideal quenchants ever created, I would shoot for 100F degree water floating on 400F degree oil!

[wolfy9005]

i think a little acid would cause the oil to be suspended in the water, but the acid might be adverse to the quenching process......